


Where The Ginkgo Leaves Fall

by onnenlintu



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 01:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13939425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnenlintu/pseuds/onnenlintu
Summary: Speculative one-shot about some other survivors of the Rash. Iceland is not the only country that can enforce a border.





	Where The Ginkgo Leaves Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Где опадает гинкго лист](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416050) by [NadiaYar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadiaYar/pseuds/NadiaYar)



Park Young-soo flicked through radio channels. Every day since the screaming began, he had left the house and gone to work in much the same way he had before. Every day, more and more of the airwaves were dominated by that same screaming. To an outside observer, his habits had not changed from the ones he had kept during his whole time working at the intelligence centre. His time at work, though, was slowly becoming an exercise in ranging further and further outwards, trying to find anything that might be worth intercepting. More and more languages warped into an endless fuzz of tortured voices. At first, he had suspected it was some trick in the outside world's communications, one they would have to work to decode before normality returned. As time went on, it had become clearer and clearer that this trend was not reversing. His position made some classified information "need-to-know" and finally it had filtered through. Beyond the nation's borders, people were dying, in numbers too great to help even if the order had come to try.  
  
He leaned back and took his headphones off, looking around the small room where he spent most of his waking hours. His coworkers were preparing to leave. On one wall there hung a flag, slightly faded with age, depicting a hammer, writing brush and sickle. On another wall, a portrait hung, much less faded due to its replacement a mere two years beforehand. The stoic face of Kim Jong-un watched him as he, too, packed up his things and left to go home.  
  
Despite the effort made by all to maintain routine, the atmosphere in Pyongyang was one of unease. While odd fluctuations in the news were to be expected - new forms of education were trialled all the time - there was a sense of wrongness to the broadcasts now that filled the people with an unspoken dread. People noticed when the military delegations to the border zones increased. People had their suspicions about who in their family knew state secrets, and drew their own conclusions about the tension that had emerged in their loved ones' faces. People knew something was deeply off. In the weeks since the world outside had descended into whatever hell it had met, Young-soo had felt the atmosphere in the city become thick with worry.  
  
He paused as he passed the floating rice fields. It was a sight he would never get sick of. They had been implemented even in the middle of the city, testament to the strides forward that had been made in the past decade and a half. The brightness of the evening light on the water was beautiful in itself, but more beautiful was the thought of what they represented. The famines of the 1990s had been brutal, and Young-soo hoped more than anything that he would never know such horror and loss of life again. The progress he had seen in his lifetime, with the self-sufficiency projects leading to leaps and bounds forward in quality of life, was some comfort now. Whatever plague was warping the voices in the radio, the rice harvest would continue.  
  
Arriving home, he found his wife sitting in the dark. He pulled the curtains open and smiled at her, attempting an air of casual reassurance. "What's the sense of this? It's no good for your eyes, you know." He knew that she could not have been sitting there for long. Her shift at the factory should have ended only shortly before his own work.  
  
She looked up at him, her face tight. She had questions. Young-soo knew this. But in all their years of marriage, both of them had known better than to discuss his work. He had no idea, really, how much she had deduced about what his role was. She seemed, usually, to guess that the house might be bugged. He wasn't sure about that himself, but the risk to their entire families would never, ever be worth finding out.  
  
Blinking in the fresh light, she answered only with a slight affirmative noise. He sat down opposite her and continued smiling. "It's such a beautiful autumn out there."  
  
"It's finally happening, isn't it?"  
  
That was not a response he'd expected. She was looking him right in the eye, a tragic resignation painted across her features. The fear gnawing at her was so palpable, a naked child in the woods would have seemed less vulnerable.  
  
"The war. It's finally started, hasn't it?"  
  
She had never spoken so plainly before. Young-soo didn't know what to say. It made sense that this is what she would assume. All their lives, they had lived in fear of missiles coming from across the Pacific to end everything they knew. Everyone knew that the Americans hated their existence and weilded power far beyond that of their own modest nation. Fear was rising within him at her direct tone. Perhaps she expected to be dead next week anyway. It was the only way he could make sense of her behaviour.  
  
"There is no war." He spoke with the calm, clipped reassurance of a state broadcaster.  
  
She continued to meet his eyes with hers, searching his face for any hint of a lie. He rose up and circled the table, drawing her up by one hand. He cupped her face. Her eyes were so wide and dark he could see his own faint reflection in them.  
  
"There won't be a war." He repeated himself, hoping that the truth of his statement would shine through her doubt. The slight tone of a state broadcaster returned as he continued. "We are safe here." She held his gaze for a long, long time, then ducked her head. "I'm sorry."  
  
Perhaps she would never know how uniquely true his statement was. He could not predict when, if ever, the change of affairs would be reported. He could only hope that despite this outburst of questioning, he and his family would remain untouched. The way he had handled it had been above reproach, and perhaps the chaos on the borders would make this a low priority. He hugged her. For now, everything around him was safe.  
  
*************************  
  
FREE PEOPLE OF KOREA!  
  
THE IDEOLOGICAL TRAITOR IS OVERTHROWN, AND THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT TAKES HOLD OF THE CAPITAL. DOWN WITH STAGNATION. THE TRUTH SHINES OUT THROUGH FRESH REVOLUTION.  
  
CHANGE YOUR CALENDERS. THE YEAR 2024 WILL HENCEFORTH BE KNOWN AS YEAR 0, THE YEAR OF A NEW DAWN. THE FIRST PRIORITY OF THE NEW PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY WILL BE TO RECLAIM THE OLD LANDS FROM THE RED POX. TEN ACRES FOR EVERY FAMILY BY YEAR 10!  
  
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC.  
  
*************************  
  
Kyo Mi-kyung shouldered her flamethrower, shoved her goggles in the pocket of her overalls, and began to climb the hill. Around her, the ground smouldered. Rubble crunched under her feet. A cat followed her, trying to wind around her legs, and she paused to caress its head. There were still some mutated rats scurrying through the recent wreckage, but she walked without fear. She had been born in Year 60, and was the product of two generations of rigidly deployed social engineering towards immunity. With a weapon in her hand to fight off any larger mutants, the world held no fear for her, nor for any other Korean of her age. Although her face was scarred from years of working with explosives and fire, her eyes were bright and determined as she scrambled to the peak.  
  
As she reached the crest, a cool sea breeze hit her smoke-burnished face. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in the feeling. When she opened them, the view across the sea was everything she had hoped. The day was bright and clear, and across the water she could see the coast of the old nation of Japan. The long road to clearing the southern edges of the Korean peninsula was not only her duty to walk, it was a joy to any worker convinced of the height of their purpose.  
  
She stood, watching the waves roll gently across the wideness of the Korea Strait, contemplating the distant shore. She was not yet thirty. Perhaps one day it would be time to carve new land out there too. The island nation was known to be thick with mutants, but its position in the sea was a good one, and all the old stories said that the land was beautiful besides. If their kind Leader made the decision to clear Japan of its infestation, she would gladly take up her flamethrower again.  
  
The sun glinted off the sea. It was beautiful. In the weeks she had just spent working, she had not had much time to appreciate the the spring that was unfolding, but now there was a moment to remember. Lessons learned in childhood began to play through her mind. A less advanced society might have called it some kind of fate, but Mi-kyung knew that it was science - the science of history's progression and the people's struggle - that had led Korea into the isolation that had saved every man, woman and child inside it. The sea wind filled her lungs, and gratitude filled her heart. A tear rolled down her face as she was struck by the knowledge of how many glittering seas and rich forests the world contained. It was her people that it had all been left for, and the immortal science of Marxism-Leninism would inherit the earth with them.


End file.
